Best posts made by lordbelh

A while ago I played on a chat site called oasiz. It had a forum. At first it was lightly moderated and, while it had plenty of drama and petty bullshit, it was also lively. They decided to go the heavily moderated route instead, enforcing their definition of polite and orderly discourse. It died soon enough afterwards.

There's a certain personality type that loves to mother discussions to death if you give them an ounce of authority to do so.

I guess I'll take a lively discussion with the occasional nasty over an orderly forum with empowered and zealous moderators who who want to enforce the nice.

@ganymede said in Review of Recent Bans:

I think a substantial part of the community does not care for, and never cared for, the sort of public-shaming of the Hog Pit. And I now believe, after 20 years, that the idea that public shaming will cause a change in behavior is pretty vain, if not a pretext to simply being a shitty person.

I'm going to reply to this here, because it feels like the better thread for it.

If we're talking about the general public shaming that's involved in issuing a warning against a player, or a game, for shitty behavior, I like at least having an idea of the issues at hand. Even if it sometimes goes too far and becomes a dogpile just for its own sake.

But when it comes to the public shaming of opinions exchanged on these boards, then I'm in full agreement. I don't, and I've never liked it. If you want to change someone's mind, or even just have a semi-reasonable discussion, then the only way to do that is through two-way empathy. If you want someone to listen to your points, you have to be willing to listen in good faith to theirs. (Edit: Listening does not equal agreeing with, condoning or anything of the type. It just means listening, and acknowledging them as an actual person rather than a devil.)

Sure, they might not return the favor, but if you don't try then why would you ever expect them to either?

If all someone want is to be right, and meme-flame and feel righteous in their fury, then ok. But how does it help anyone? Anger can be a powerful motivator to take the fight against wrongs, and it's often warranted. But it's also a dangerous and seductive feeling. It's easy to get addicted to it. It turns discussions into just short-term euphoria opportunities where you can get your little shot of dopamine by pwning the other side, and then getting a second shot when notifications tell you others joined in. It's easy to forget that the other person is a person, with their own fully realized internal life and experiences. Even if you're championing views that I share, the way you're doing it makes you part of the problem in my eyes. I've seen plenty of it on these forums.

I can't say I'll miss all of that, if it lessen a little.

@faraday said in Positivity Going Forward...:

I applaud the shift to a more positive environment, but I'm skeptical as to whether the community has the bandwidth to really support multiple forums.

I share this concern. I've seen other hobby communities split, and devolve into little tribes bickering over pointless ancient scores, reducing the whole community as neither has enough members to actually foster a healthy group.

That said, I won't assume it'll go that way. It might. Or perhaps it'll be for the better. I honestly don't know, and since I'm not in a position of authority either way, I'll just go with the flow and keep up with lurking on two forums rather than just one.

Same old faces, same old discussions? Ah well, I missed it.

He's fun to play, too. So I guess that works out for everybody.

I made a character and while it can sometimes be slow to get a scene (its not a huge game), the rp I've had has been enjoyable. I went with a mercenary because I honestly don't know if I have the time to be seriously invested. It's soon summer here, too, and if its a nice one I'll be outside enjoying it. Last one absolutely sucked.

@Arkandel said:

And if it's not there for RP but just a command (+feed <place>=<amount>) then what's the point? How is that entertaining?

I find that it influences the RP indirectly. The choices you make depend on your access to blood. You know you can't heal yourself all that easy if you go into Agg, you know you can't engage in a fight if you're low on blood, or just casually waste it on the Blush. Doing Blood Sorcery ca be a massive undertaking if you need that extra blood sacrifice to have a shot at success.

I find having to make all those adjustments entertaining. But that might just be me.

@ganymede said in Review of Recent Bans:

I respect your opinion and follow your logic, but I disagree with a number of premises and ultimately your conclusion.

Fair enough, @Ganymede . I got no problem believing you're trying to do what you think is best. I see no evidence of malice. Just a lot of mistakes, and then doubling down on those mistakes. I suppose we'll see how it shakes out in the end. I sorta-kinda like this community, even with all its flaws, so ultimately I'm rooting for you.

October struck me as interesting from my tiny interaction with her.

@lotherio Yeah, I haven't been able to meet mine at all, even if we've tried to match up. I guess we're just two ships adrift in the sea!

@Thisnameistaken I agree with most of what you say. I don't want to have to go into scenes to regain my blood. That will become onerous after a while; what rp time I have I want to dedicate to scenes that interest me. But just typing in a hunt roll takes 2 seconds. When you combine that with a limited supply of blood, and a limited amount of time to hunt, then it becomes meaningful but unintrusive. The last part is important.

I prefered the old. It was charmingly disorganized.

@Sonder said:

Pilar - Wolfblooded/Warden/Mortal

I remember having a couple of amusing scenes with this character with my mortal cop, Faolan o'Rourke. I only had the one TR character, of often limited activity.

@auspice It probably should be more transparent and open about the systems, though. I mean, I commend you for poking into it and just giving it your full go, but a lot of people tend to just follow what's easily out there and defined. I usually think everybody benefits if the systems and the expectations of staff are clearly written. It makes for less confusion, and less disappointments. They've taken some steps with that with suggesting people use requests if they have things on their minds, but still not the most effective way of doing it I think.

Edit to add: Of course some people will just sit around and expect to be spoon fed no matter what you put out there. But some just don't want to bother staff unnecessarily, too.

I play a wide variety of characters. Slick politician, quiet schemer, bumbling fool, corrupt mercenary, lazy cop, etc, etc. I guess if I have a type its characters with pronounced flaws. I also like to look at what's on the grid already, and then I go against type. If there's a lot of villains on a game, I'll play a good guy, and vice versa. But even my good guys'll have serious flaws to their personalities. Ie, my good guy earnest cop who tried his best to help people who were in front of him, and who was absolutely faithful and dedicated to his spouse, was also lazy and complacent unless reality forced upon him a choice to do the right thing or horribleness might follow. If he wouldn't see an immense harm in just kicking back and taking a nap on the side of the road, he'd do just that. He was also addicted to pain killers, and had a hit-and-run in his background that kept gnawing on him in self destructive ways.

Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that I honestly have the most fun when I play characters who have big blind spots. I can get caught up in the moment and want to win the game, which I usually regret.

Edit to add:

When it comes to judging other people for the type of characters the play, I generally don't. If they make the character (and/or) the scenes interesting and believable, I don't care what they're playing.

@Auspice said in The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo:

I've been swapping between it and the second Expanse novel and I've all but forgotten about the Expanse book for the moment.

I'm the opposite. I started reading Ninth House, while also reading a bit of the Expanse, and I ended up dropping Ninth House for the time being. Not that it was bad, it's just that I got totally engrossed with the Expanse. I'm almost done with the series, tho, so I'll soon be returning to Ninth House.

Something historical.

@gingerlily I don't know why, but I got a chuckle out of that.

@HelloRaptor I really liked those. Didn't change my life, though.

Updated for Arx.

I've been playing on and off since pretty much the start of Alpha, but recently work has been crapping on me so my availability is way less. That said, I hope that'll pass and I'll once more be back to ruining everybody's day on a more regular basis.